Effectiveness of English for specific purposes courses for non-English speaking students of hospitality and tourism: A latent growth curve analysis

The present research examines the effectiveness of English for Specific Purposes courses in a hospitality and tourism university in Taiwan. TOEIC scores were collected from 1884 participants in 14 waves and used for latent growth curve analysis. The results demonstrated no significant longitudinal increase in TOEIC scores at the interdepartmental level, but significant differences were found to occur between students from different disciplines. Students from hospitality programmes showed significant longitudinal improvement in TOEIC scores, while their peers in tourism and culinary arts programmes were found to disimprove over time. When examining intradepartmental factors, it was found that the variables of School and Hours of ESP (instruction) did not significantly affect students' TOEIC performance. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.